SECRETARY PAIGE: Thank you so much for that kind introduction, Mr. Morial. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your courtesy. I just want to spend just a few minutes talking briefly about what I think is a very important issue.

First, let me begin though thanking the president of this great organization. Hugh Price and I were great friends, and still are. I've got to admit I was sad when he decided to take another direction, and I wondered if he would be able to find the great leadership to keep going forward as you'd been doing. And I've got to tell you, the verdict is in, that you did. You did a great job. Let me applaud your work. [Applause.]

Of course, the internal momentum for education is still present in Dr. Velma Cobb, and I want to give her a round of applause, too. She's— [Applause.]

Whose idea was it that I speak right after the president? Let me ask this. [Laughter.] Anyway, with more courage than wisdom, let me bring up a couple of points.

I first want to thank you for your history, the National Urban League. You know about all accomplishments and you know how much better off we are now because a great organization like this exists. But in studying management, I took a course that had one of its units entitled, "The Price to Stay." Which meant that no matter how good things were in the past and how much you accomplished back then, the things in front of you are just as tough and will cost just as much energy and need just as much commitment.

I think this is very true now, maybe even more so. No matter about all of the previous accomplishments that we've accomplished, we have come a long way. Think about it. We were in slavery longer than we've been out of slavery. And think about all of the accomplishments we've made. I think all those accomplishments are at risk if we don't deal with this achievement gap in our education issues now. [Applause.]

I think we have, as far as the minority community is concerned, the disadvantaged community is concerned, we have an education emergency in the United States of America. Look at the difference in performance of these kids and the majority kids—just last Tuesday, when we rolled out the NAEP results of the five great cities that compared their 4th and 8th grade reading students. One of those cities was Washington, D.C. Of all the cities that had data in, Washington, D.C. had the highest-performing Anglo students and the lowest-performing African American students. There was a 60-point gap in the 4th grade.

When you go back to your various cities, I want you to look at that in your town. Find out what these issues are. Before now, we've all explained these things away because of resource issues and other kinds of things like that. But what I want to point out now is I think many of these impediments are things that we can address in our own community by looking at it and paying attention to it, and this is where our leadership need to be.

Our leaders in past days identified those barriers that impeded advance for us. And many of those barriers have been depleted somewhat. Some are still with us, but not nearly as strong. But the stealthy one, the one that we can't see and not paying much attention to, threatens to unzip everything that we've accomplished.

And think about the demographic shifts that we're going through. How are we going to address that? We're no longer the largest minority in this country. Think about the social dynamics involved in that. We need new leadership to go in different directions to deal with new ways to manage our educational shortcomings.

There are great schools in our country. There are great schools and great teachers and great principals, and they're doing great jobs. [Applause.] But what we have to be concerned about now is making sure that all of them are like that, because all of these kids don't go to these great schools. Many of them are in schools that are not doing them well.

I want to ask us to focus our attention on this problem. This achievement gap, this un-American achievement gap that's based on the premise that all children cannot learn, that's based on the premise that some people can determine who should learn and who shouldn't. We can't make that decision. We have to make sure that every single child gets our best attention.

We have a tool now to make that happen. It's called the No Child Left Behind Act. The president referenced it, and I won't spend a lot of time dealing with it except to say that with every fiber in our body—we intend to see that the congressional intent and the president's vision on the No Child Left Behind Act is carried out all across our nation. And the reason for that is because I am convinced that it is the best thing that could happen to our children, to make sure that they have an opportunity to gain an identity as far as education is concerned and that people care about them, and schools cannot just pass them through without paying big attention to them.

Every state now must demonstrate an accountability system that covers every child and holds every child to the same high standards, and report this information back to parents and to us in the federal government. States are working hard now. I appreciate the cooperation we're getting from them. And we're making more progress than ever before.

And the president has been very generous in the funding, by making the largest amount of dollars, the most dollars ever available for disadvantaged children's education in the history of America, available to us. Forty-one percent increase in Title I just since he has been in office, in two and a half years. [Applause.]

It is also a local issue. We can make laws, we can allocate dollars, we can provide technical assistance. But if a difference is going to be made, the difference is going to be made by the men and women who walk up and down the halls of the schools and who look into the eyeballs of the children. And they need your support and they need my support.

And I think that if we do what we can do and should do and absolutely must do, the same kind of progress that our forefathers gained in civil rights, that same kind of progress can be extended to our education situation, which I think is a civil right. I think every child an America has a right to a quality education. [Applause.]

I reject this attitude by many people who say that certain people can't learn. I reject this not only on principle, but also because I have seen the opposite of that. The KIPP Academy would be an example. Samuel Gompers High School in New York would be an example. It exists in the lowest per capital income congressional district in the nation. Yet these children are progressing.

For me, it doesn't matter about a child's ZIP Code, it doesn't matter about their dialect, or whether they have one parent or two. They still deserve our best efforts. And when we give them that, they tend to show us things that we didn't expect to be there. They learn at the same rate as any other child. This achievement gap is not a product of these children's DNA. It is the product of our efforts. [Applause.]

Let's get together and fix this. Let's own this in our own communities. Let us assume this responsibility. Let us take it upon ourselves to make sure that our children are getting a quality education. We have the power and we have the responsibility. Let's just do it.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Applause.]

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